Donald Trump breaks the GOP

It was as shocking as it was predictable after a year of slow-motion build-up — the dramatic splitting apart of the Grand Old Party in the 72 hours after Donald Trump became its presumptive nominee.

When asked Friday if the organization he now leads is officially Trump’s party, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus responded with pithy double-speak befitting this dystopian moment in our politics.

“It’s the party’s party,” Priebus said.

Whatever party Priebus was speaking of is currently in tatters.

There is no more denying that Trump will be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. But there is still plenty of denial when it comes to accepting the more fundamental issue at hand: that the fractious coalition of conservatives that we used to know as the Republican Party is, after a decade of fraying ties between the Washington-based establishment and its base, is now comprised of two separate coalitions.

“He has not displayed a respect for the Constitution. And, he is not a consistent conservative. These are all reasons why I cannot support his candidacy” — Jeb Bush

There are those mainstream conservatives still tethered to the party’s ideological history of limited government, free trade and a hawkish foreign policy; and there is the conservative base that is increasingly resentful of elites of all stripes, voters unmoored from ideology and drawn to Trump’s charisma, fearlessness and a populist, angry brand of neo-nationalism.

And there is no longer any use pretending these two factions want anything to do with one another.

Three days after Trump effectively locked up the nomination, the so-called “unity pledge” Priebus got all the presidential candidates to sign last fall, a promise to support the party’s nominee, has been shredded. Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham Friday both made it clear they will not be following through on that pledge, each explaining why they cannot support Trump.

“Donald Trump has not demonstrated that temperament or strength of character,” Bush wrote in a Facebook post Friday. “He has not displayed a respect for the Constitution. And, he is not a consistent conservative. These are all reasons why I cannot support his candidacy.”

Bush, of course, said the same things about Trump during his own campaign. It was easier then to sidestep the question of whether he’d support Trump should the New Yorker win the nomination simply by insisting, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, that Trump was never going to be the party’s nominee. But there is nothing hypothetical about the question anymore.

Those months of insistence that Trump wouldn’t — couldn’t! — win the nomination of William F. Buckley’s party laid bare a refusal by Bush and the patrician GOP establishment, its mostly coastal world of donors and intellectuals, to recognize that the conservative base was no longer tethered to the lofty ideas about trickle-down economic theories their leaders might yammer about on weekends at the country club.

Unlike the Bushes, House Speaker Paul Ryan cannot simply walk away. The GOP’s most prominent and powerful elected official, Ryan is regarded as one of the party’s foremost intellectuals. So perhaps it was no surprise when he popped up on CNN Thursday afternoon to explain why he, too, isn’t ready to support Trump.

The onus is on the party establishment — not the other way around — to either embrace Trump or walk away.

“I’m not there right now,” Ryan told CNN’s Jake Tapper Thursday, adding that he hopes to come around once Trump answers his questions and demonstrates an ability to unify the party.

Ryan’s statement is as much a reflection of his deeply held conservative convictions as it is his unique political predicament. The Speaker, always wary of offending his party’s base and maintaining his fragile coalition of House Republicans, wanted to appear open to supporting Trump — eager to support him, in fact — as soon as the businessman can unify the party and show a commitment to the conservative ideas that, in the minds of Ryan and the party’s intellectual class, have long held the GOP together.

But if that’s the requirement, Ryan will likely never support Trump — because Trump appears uninterested in uniting what are now two separate parties and indifferent to the policy ideas Ryan holds dear.

Ryan will be able to maintain his distance over the next six months and provide some cover for vulnerable House members for whom Trump could be a liability.

But Ryan has seen the swell of popular support around Trump, who is indifferent to the party establishment’s deeply held orthodoxies on foreign policy and fiscal conservatism. He’s seen how Trump’s most nativist, inflammatory rhetoric on immigration and trade resonate with millions of disaffected voters who are uninterested in self-serving party “autopsy” reports written by party officials. And in the last 48 hours, he’s seen a number of House members criticize him for refusing to help unite the party as they’ve declared their own support for the GOP nominee.

Ryan said Thursday that Trump must “get on board” with the party’s traditional platform. Priebus said the businessman must “change his tone.” But they have little leverage other than to withhold their support. The primary results only validate Trump — his willingness to flout convention and political correctness is a huge part of his appeal. The onus is on the party establishment — not the other way around — to either embrace Trump or walk away.

“Reince is trying to be nice right now,” said one GOP state chairman, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, last week. “But after the convention, I doubt he mentions Trump at all. The focus is going to be almost completely down-ballot on saving the Senate and the House.”

There is no ignoring it any longer. The Trump Train has already rolled over the traditional Republican coalition. It is up to Ryan and Priebus and the Bushes whether or not they will get on board, but there is little they can do at the moment to slow it down.

And whatever dreams Ryan has of unifying this broken coalition in 2020, dreams also held by Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and several others, are likely to again run up against the reality that even if Trump is halted this fall, Trumpism and the frothing anti-establishment forces that he has so successfully harnessed, forces that have been roiling the conservative base for a decade now, outnumber and outmuscle the party’s traditional leadership class and will still have to be reckoned with.